Maundy Thursday Sermon: Holy Communion As Time Travel
Introduction
In my childhood, I was captivated by scientific developments: that phase of my
life was punctuated by Apollo
space missions and moon landings. At primary school, we were summoned into
the hall to watch a large black and white television on the stage show a
recording of Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the
surface of the moon. (Contrast me with my wife, who believes Buzz Lightyear walked on
the moon!) I idolised television presenters such as James Burke.
I thought Patrick Moore
was wonderful. My father took me to a meeting of the British Astronomical Association in
London where he was speaking, and he treated the children’s questions
afterwards with the same importance as the adults’. I later learned I shared a
birthday with him.
This love of science fact was paired with a love of science
fiction. (It was about the only fiction that ever interested me, once I’d
outgrown Enid Blyton.) I read novels
such as ‘The
Sands Of Mars’ by Arthur
C Clarke, and went to the cinema to watch ‘2001:
A Space Odyssey’, instead of watching Princess Anne’s first wedding on TV. There
was a children’s television series called ‘The Time Tunnel’. Scientists
entered what I would now call a vortex, and travel either to the past or to the
future. I didn’t enjoy Doctor Who,
though: it was too scary for my over-active imagination, as was a film I once
saw on TV about the end of the world.
But time travel – that fascinated me. Maybe that’s why in my
twenties, I enjoyed the Back
To The Future films.
And ‘time travel’ forms a theme to introduce my thoughts
tonight. On this Maundy Thursday, when we remember Jesus’ institution of the
Lord’s Supper, I want us to reflect on its place in time. Because Holy
Communion touches past, present and future.
1. Past
Have you ever had an experience where your mind recalls a vivid incident from
your past, and you are so caught up in it, you feel as if you were back there? I
have had it, and often when listening to boring preachers, so I hope it isn’t occurring
now! My mind will go off on tangents, and I might find myself thinking about a
particularly happy family holiday. The memory will be so vivid that it is
almost as if smell the sea air and taste the ice cream. If you have had such an
experience, you will probably have said something like this: ‘I was right back
there.’ Of course you weren’t, and neither was I, but it is as if we have gone
back in time to that special moment. Once the daydream breaks, we land back in
mundane present with a bump.
‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ says Jesus in some accounts.
Alternatively, his statements that the bread represents his body and the wine
his blood point to an event that was then about to happen, but which is now
located nearly two thousand years in the past. For us, Holy Communion is a
looking back to the past. It takes us back – albeit, unlike our daydreaming, to
an event at which we were not present. So how is it relevant for us? Authors
have written entire books in attempts to explain the mystery, but let me offer
the odd simple pointer.
One is this: while we were not historically present at
Calvary or the Upper Room, we were representatively. We stand in union with the
entire human race in its separation from God due to sin. We also stand as
disciples of Jesus in union with him. Our salvation did not simply come when we
encountered Jesus for the first time in the here and now: it happened in a land
under Roman occupation, on a hill outside Jerusalem. Physically and individually,
we were not there, but representatively we were. This connects us to the past.
Then, if that is too hard, try this: I think we would all
agree that the events of the past have an effect upon the present. Indeed, the
most important historical events shape
the present. Take the Second World War as a clear example of this. It led to
the creation of the Russian-led Eastern communist bloc, and to the later
freedoms in that region. Germany and Japan went from humiliation to economic,
rather than military resurgence. It led to the formation of what we now call
the European Union, as nations sought to prevent another international war. It led
to interventions in the former Yugoslavia, as the West feared more ethnic
cleansing and genocide. It affected our national politics.
And so on. This is what a powerful international event in
history does. It cannot be hermetically sealed in the past. Rather, a past
event shapes the present. It is the same, only more so, with the Cross of
Christ. When we remember that past event, as we do at Holy Communion, not only
are we connected in a representative way, we are changed in the here and now. It
is not for nothing that John Wesley called the Lord’s Supper a ‘converting
ordinance’.
We cannot come away from the Lord’s Table unchanged. At least,
Jesus does not mean us to do so. In the words of one book, it is about ‘Past
Event And Present Salvation’. Jesus died for the sins of the world, he died
to conquer the forces of evil, and he did this in love to set us free. The
events of this weekend changed all history. At the very least, when we come in
faith to the sacrament, the expectation is that all he accomplished at the
Cross is made available to us. That past event brings us forgiveness, confidence
to face the darkness, freedom from the things that bind us and an assurance of
God’s love.
2. Present
‘This is my body … this is my blood of the covenant,’ says Jesus: simple words
that have divided his disciples for centuries. At risk of over-simplification, I
think there have been four broad strands of thinking about them.
First, you can take them literally. If so, then the bread
and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ. I think this view fails to
take seriously the fact that Jesus was using a typically Jewish heightened
version of metaphor in his speech here.
Secondly, at the other extreme, you can say that the Lord’s
Supper is just an ordinance, something Jesus commanded. It is purely a memorial
meal. But that is not to take seriously other New Testament texts, particularly
in 1 Corinthians 10, that speak of Holy Communion as a ‘communion’ or ‘fellowship’
in the body and blood of Christ.
That leaves two other views. One says that the bread and
wine don’t change, but Jesus is really present in them. The other – and the one
I personally favour – also says that the elements don’t change, but it doesn’t
try to locate Jesus in a particular place. Rather, when we follow Christ’s last
command here in obedient faith, we commune with him in our lives. Obeying Jesus
in faith by taking bread and wine in his memory leads us to an experience of
him at his table.
How many of us can say that when we take the sacrament, we
have encountered Christ? I think a show of hands would have most of us
indicating ‘yes’. If that is so, then Holy Communion is not simply a memory of
the past, it is an experience of Christ in the present.
And for that reason, it is more than a memorial meal or a
memorial service. It is a funny kind of memorial service where the deceased is
present! For although there is a primary reference to the death of Christ when
he instituted the Lord’s Supper – ‘my blood … which is poured out for many’ –
it is also about his resurrection. Holy Communion holds together both the death
and the resurrection of Christ.
Tonight, then, like every sacramental service, is a time to
come to the communion rail with expectation. Here, on Maundy Thursday, not only
do we anticipate with sorrow the betrayal, suffering and death of our Lord, we
also anticipate Easter morning, when we shout with joy, ‘Christ is risen! He is
risen indeed!’ As the disciples recognised the risen Lord in the breaking of
the bread at Emmaus, so we meet him here. He strengthens us, and fills us with
his love. Sometimes we just need to know he’s there; other times, we need the
experience of his presence to thrust us back into active Christian service. What
is it we need from Christ this evening? Whatever it is, let us come to the
table expecting to meet him.
Which leads us onto the third piece of time travel:
3. Future
Verse 29 of our reading is a mysterious one that we easily overlook. Jesus
says,
‘I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the
vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’
But Paul too saw a future aspect to the Lord’s Supper when
he told the Corinthians that whenever they ate the bread and drank the wine in
memory of Jesus, they proclaimed his death until
he comes.
However, although we can overlook this, we build this future
hope into our liturgies. The post-communion prayer is a common place to hear
it. One Methodist prayer (based on some Catholic thought from Vatican 2, trivia
fans!) thanks God for feeding us with the sacrament and giving us a foretaste
of the heavenly banquet prepared for all people.
Now I don’t know how good we are at foretastes of heavenly
banquets. In some Methodist circles there seems to be a competition to cut up
the pieces of bread as small as possible. The chance of having a foretaste of a
banquet seems remote!
There is a sense, though, in which Jesus will go thirsty
until the kingdom of God comes in all its fullness, until the new heavens and
new earth come. He will not drink the fruit of the vine again until he drinks
it new with his friends in his Father’s kingdom. Jesus is thirsty for the
kingdom of God.
And Holy Communion is designed to make us hungry and thirsty
for the kingdom of God, too. While connecting with Christ’s death in the past
and his risen presence in the here and now bring us comfort and hope, the Lord’s
Supper also brings us restlessness and challenge. It gives us a vision of how
the world is meant to be, and leaves us impatient for change. Holy Communion
makes us ask: who else should be at the table? It asks: who is going hungry,
because God’s will is not being done? For it reminds us of how things will be
in the Father’s kingdom. The bread will be plentiful, and the wine will flow –
however hard we Methodists pray to turn the wine back into water, it will be
poured out liberally! As we anticipate the generosity of God the Father who
will host the kingdom banquet, we notice the searing discrepancies with life
now. Holy Communion sends us out to share the Gospel in word and deed. It cannot
leave us in our spiritual enclave.
There is a section of the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the
Battle of Hastings in 1066. The legend beneath it, when translated into
English, says, ‘King William comforteth his soldiers.’ How is William the
Conqueror comforting them? He is prodding them up the backside with his sword! So
too, a true celebration of the Lord’s Supper prods us into action. The vision
of God’s kingdom gives us not a placid hope, but a divinely inspired
restlessness that thrusts us back into the world as Gospel people.
Conclusion
Someone once said that the job of the preacher was to comfort the afflicted,
and to afflict the comfortable. Might it be that Holy Communion has the same
task?
What do we need tonight – comfort or affliction? May God
grant us our deepest needs in Christ, as we gather at his Table.
Technorati Tags: HolyCommunion, NeilArmstrong, BuzzAldrin, BuzzLightyear, JamesBurke, PatrickMoore, BritishAstronomicalAssociation, EnidBlyton, ArthurCClarke, TheTimeTunnel, DoctorWho, BackToTheFuture, MaundyThursday, PaulFiddes, Methodist, Vatican2, BayeuxTapestry
The Atheist Delusion
I don’t need to agree with all John Gray’s conclusions and values to recognise this as a powerful attack on the contemporary atheist and anti-religious brigade:
The atheist delusion | By genre | guardian.co.uk Books
Technorati Tags: atheism, JohnGray, RichardDawkins, ChristopherHitchens, SamHarris, DanielDennett, MichaelOnfray, MartinAmis
Good Friday
James Emery White on Good Friday: Serious Times – Blog
Technorati Tags: JamesEmeryWhite, GoodFriday
links for 2008-03-16
-
Bob Hyatt in part one of three on dialogue preaching.
Tomorrow’s Sermon: The King Rides In
1. Humility
On Thursday morning, I had to take two assemblies at Broomfield Primary School. Sharon
Young, the RE Co-ordinator, had asked me to take ‘Palm Sunday’ as my theme. I wondered
what to do. Then, stealing inspiration from a book on my shelf, I asked them
whether they watched Top Gear[1].
From the raucous response, I gathered the answer was ‘yes’. So I asked them
about people and cars. If the Queen turned up to visit their school, what kind
of car would she be in? The consensus was Rolls Royce. If Gordon Brown came for
a political photo opportunity, what car would carry him? Some kind of black
limousine was the main answer. And if David Beckham arrived to launch a branch
of his Football Academy, what would he drive? Here, the argument was purely
about which kind of sports car it would be: Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche.
Then I asked them what they would think if David Beckham
turned up in a Reliant Robin, or on a pushbike. I think the overall response I received
could have been summarised by the word ‘derision’. A famous or important public
figure just wouldn’t travel that way. We discussed how people would feel if
(locally born hero) General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Head of the British Army,
rode a bike rather than a military vehicle to an official function.
But that, I said, was exactly what Jesus did on what we call
Palm Sunday. He came, not on a warhorse, but a donkey. He came as king, but not
as the warrior king. He came fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah on a donkey,
an animal signifying peace and humility. Jesus was a different kind of king. What
kind of different king?
To make this point, I asked for two volunteers. The forest
of hands was dense! I invited one boy at the back to come out with a friend. I sat
the boy down on a chair, and asked him to remove his shoes. Then I asked his
friend to smell his feet. Fortunately, the boy didn’t use a rude word! He looked
closer to it when I then suggested he should wash his friend’s feet!
So I explained the foot-washing story from John 13, and how
it was necessary to wash feet after long journeys on Palestine’s dusty roads, wearing
sandals. I told them how Jewish servants found it too demeaning to do, and how
the task was allocated only to Gentile slaves. How shocking, then, for Jesus to
wash his disciples’ feet. The same Jesus who had ridden into Jerusalem on a
donkey, now also shows peace and humility in the act of foot washing. This is a
different kind of king. This is not one who lords it over others, but one whose
deepest concern is for those who – in terms of rank – are far beneath him.
We know all this – don’t we? It’s something we cover most
Palm Sundays and every Holy Week. Jesus is the ‘humble king’. But it raises the
simple points about Christian humility. Do we prefer the needs of others to our
own? Do we consider some activities beneath us? Are we a little too keen to
name-drop and make ourselves sound more important than we really are? Maybe this
year it’s time for a little check-up on our pride and self-importance. If Jesus,
the king of God’s kingdom, could behave with such humility, what would he call
us to do as a sign of that kingdom? Have we become more serious about ourselves
than about Jesus? Is it time to take ourselves a lot less seriously, and Christ
much more so?
2. Peace
Humility isn’t the only way in which Jesus will confound his crowd of
supporters. They shout, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, thus giving him a
messianic title. And – as we know again – they had certain ideas about what
Messiah would do when he came. He would save his people from the sinners who
were oppressing them. But Jesus has been given that name at birth for a
different reason. Not that he will save his people from sinners, but that he
will save his people from their sins.
And for that reason, he rides in on a donkey, not a
warhorse. He comes in peace. He will not save his people from their sins with
violence – he cannot do it that way. The humble king comes in peace, not to
inflict violence, but to suffer violence. In doing so, he will in some
mysterious way stand where his people should, absorbing that which rightly should
be theirs, sin being condemned in his body instead. Jesus rides into Jerusalem,
knowing that later in the week he will walk out of the city, carrying a crossbeam.
Hence, we sing:
Ride on, ride on in majesty
In lowly pomp ride on to die
This is how he establishes his kingdom. He conquers the evil
that opposes his reign not with force but suffering. And if that is how he sets
up his kingdom, then it sets the tone for life in that kingdom. This is why we
can never advance the Gospel violently. It is not a matter of arguing over what
individual verses of the Bible mean: it is a question of the Cross. The Cross
is why we can say clearly that historical atrocities like the Crusades and the
Spanish Inquisition were unequivocally wrong. It is why we can be dubious about
the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, who allegedly saw the Cross in a
dream and heard the message, ‘In this sign conquer’, taking it as the promise
he would win a battle. It is why – in my opinion – it is dangerous for the
Church to be too closely allied to the State, because the State inevitably has
to use violence.
We can argue all we like as Christians about whether there
is ever such a thing as a just war, or whether all Christians should be
pacifists. However, one thing should command our universal agreement: we cannot
and must not promote Christianity by force, because that is contrary to the
Cross.
Thus, a friend of mine in the 1980s, a Kenyan clergyman,
once told me: ‘If I am attacked because I am a black man, I have no problem in
fighting back. It is a matter of justice. But if I am attacked because I am a
Christian, then I must accept suffering.’
Such talk about suffering in peace rather than responding in
violence may seem remote for many of us (although it isn’t for millions of our
sisters and brothers in Christ). But we have our smaller acts of violence that
we need to repudiate. Our acid tongues. Our character assassinations. I can
think of churches I know where stories like this are common: ‘W won’t come to
church any more, because X was cruel to her’; ‘Y can never trust Z again,
because he ripped him to shreds’. A peaceable kingdom doesn’t just mean non-violence:
it means reconciliation.
3. Inclusion
But then this peaceable Jesus goes to the Temple. And here he doesn’t look too
peaceable at all. In a sign of the judgment to come, he overturns the tables of
the moneychangers and the seats of the dove sellers. He quotes Old Testament
prophecy:
‘It is written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;
but you are making it a den of robbers.’
(Verse 13)
Why is Jesus mad? He doesn’t oppose the sacrificial system,
but he is angry that changing ordinary Roman coinage for the special Temple
currency and then the selling of doves for sacrifices using this holy money is
happening in a particular place. Is it that it is happening in the Temple? No.
To get a clue, we need to think about where Matthew got his material, and when
he wrote it.
Matthew adapts a lot of Mark’s Gospel. Mark records Jesus as
saying that the Temple should be ‘a house of prayer for all nations’. However, unlike Mark, Matthew is probably writing
after the destruction of the Temple by Roman armies in AD 70. It is now
irrelevant to his readers that non-Jews might use the Temple as a house of prayer.
But that thought is probably central to Jesus’ original actions. Why? Because
the moneychangers and dove sellers had set themselves up in the one part of the
Temple to which Gentiles could be admitted. It was called, ‘The Court of the
Gentiles’. The presence of moneychangers and dove sellers there prevented
Gentiles from coming to worship Israel’s God. They had been excluded as a
result of preoccupation with religious business. That makes the Temple ‘a den
of robbers’: the authorities have robbed Gentiles of the opportunity to worship
the Lord.
And if you doubt the idea that the religious tastemakers
were an excluding lot, look at their offence over the noise, the healings and
especially the children. They protest at the noise – a din that has arisen
because Jesus has healed sick and unclean people; a racket that is all the
louder, because children are participating in it and don’t know how to fade the
volume. It’s as if the authorities would have been happier to see the sick
remain unclean and outside the Temple. And they certainly didn’t appreciate
children who should still be learning the ropes in synagogue school leading the
worship.
Outsiders, the unclean and children: still today these
groups face exclusion rather than the welcome Jesus issued to his kingdom – a welcome
found through the grace of repentance. So, for example, when I finished my
second assembly at Broomfield Primary on Thursday, I was invited to go to the
staff room for break time and drink a welcome cuppa. Among a few conversations
was one with the Head. I never realised before that she, too, was a Christian. But
she told me a shocking story of a ‘christening’ she had recently attended in a
parish other than her own. One child was
apparently so happy at the service that she began to sing and dance. The vicar
demanded that her parents keep her under control. Then two other children
wanted a better view, so they walked down the aisle and sat on the carpet near
the font, holding hands. Was that an ‘Aaah!’ moment? Not in the eyes of this
vicar. ‘Get these children out of my way!’ was his response.
It’s a good job my Head Teacher friend is a Christian, but
what must it have been like for the families of these children, and others attending?
What did it say for the welcome to the church family that was purportedly being
issued in the baptism of the infant? The opposite message was being conveyed
loudly.
It’s actually not much different from saying that children
are the church of tomorrow – a claim that excludes them from their proper
participation now in the community of God’s kingdom.
I wonder whether we have any groups of people who would be
silently or subtly excluded. Are there those whose backgrounds we dislike, and
whom we’d rather find a way of suggesting they don’t belong here or should find
a different spiritual home?
The crazy thing is, when we exclude those who don’t usually
fit our conventional ideas about who might be worthy citizens of God’s kingdom.
If Debbie and I have an urgent personal prayer request, there are a small
handful of people to whom we turn. If we have time to get on the phone, there
are my parents and a couple of people from our last circuit: a man in his eighties
called Cyril, and a woman in her seventies called Isa. My parents, Cyril and
Isa meet conventional church-insider stereotypes. But the other person we will
ask (provided the situation is suitable for her to know about) is Rebekah, our
daughter, who will not be five until next weekend. If anyone has a hotline to
God, it’s her!
Maybe you just find that a heart-warming story about a
little girl. But I challenge you to consider that those whom we exclude are
those for whom Christ rode into Jerusalem and then died outside its walls. They
miss their inheritance of faith, and we miss their contribution to the kingdom.
Their inclusion in the kingdom is required by the humility and peace that
Christ sets as core values.
[1]
Yes, I know it’s environmentally unsound and Jeremy Clarkson’s humour is often ‘inappropriate’.
Technorati Tags: PalmSunday, BroomfieldPrimarySchool, TopGear, kingdomofGod, Queen, GordonBrown, DavidBeckham, RichardDannatt, humility, peace, inclusion, JeremyClarkson
Tomorrow’s Sermon: The King Rides In
1. Humility
On Thursday morning, I had to take two assemblies at Broomfield Primary School. Sharon
Young, the RE Co-ordinator, had asked me to take ‘Palm Sunday’ as my theme. I wondered
what to do. Then, stealing inspiration from a book on my shelf, I asked them
whether they watched Top Gear[1].
From the raucous response, I gathered the answer was ‘yes’. So I asked them
about people and cars. If the Queen turned up to visit their school, what kind
of car would she be in? The consensus was Rolls Royce. If Gordon Brown came for
a political photo opportunity, what car would carry him? Some kind of black
limousine was the main answer. And if David Beckham arrived to launch a branch
of his Football Academy, what would he drive? Here, the argument was purely
about which kind of sports car it would be: Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche.
Then I asked them what they would think if David Beckham
turned up in a Reliant Robin, or on a pushbike. I think the overall response I received
could have been summarised by the word ‘derision’. A famous or important public
figure just wouldn’t travel that way. We discussed how people would feel if
(locally born hero) General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Head of the British Army,
rode a bike rather than a military vehicle to an official function.
But that, I said, was exactly what Jesus did on what we call
Palm Sunday. He came, not on a warhorse, but a donkey. He came as king, but not
as the warrior king. He came fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah on a donkey,
an animal signifying peace and humility. Jesus was a different kind of king. What
kind of different king?
To make this point, I asked for two volunteers. The forest
of hands was dense! I invited one boy at the back to come out with a friend. I sat
the boy down on a chair, and asked him to remove his shoes. Then I asked his
friend to smell his feet. Fortunately, the boy didn’t use a rude word! He looked
closer to it when I then suggested he should wash his friend’s feet!
So I explained the foot-washing story from John 13, and how
it was necessary to wash feet after long journeys on Palestine’s dusty roads, wearing
sandals. I told them how Jewish servants found it too demeaning to do, and how
the task was allocated only to Gentile slaves. How shocking, then, for Jesus to
wash his disciples’ feet. The same Jesus who had ridden into Jerusalem on a
donkey, now also shows peace and humility in the act of foot washing. This is a
different kind of king. This is not one who lords it over others, but one whose
deepest concern is for those who – in terms of rank – are far beneath him.
We know all this – don’t we? It’s something we cover most
Palm Sundays and every Holy Week. Jesus is the ‘humble king’. But it raises the
simple points about Christian humility. Do we prefer the needs of others to our
own? Do we consider some activities beneath us? Are we a little too keen to
name-drop and make ourselves sound more important than we really are? Maybe this
year it’s time for a little check-up on our pride and self-importance. If Jesus,
the king of God’s kingdom, could behave with such humility, what would he call
us to do as a sign of that kingdom? Have we become more serious about ourselves
than about Jesus? Is it time to take ourselves a lot less seriously, and Christ
much more so?
2. Peace
Humility isn’t the only way in which Jesus will confound his crowd of
supporters. They shout, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, thus giving him a
messianic title. And – as we know again – they had certain ideas about what
Messiah would do when he came. He would save his people from the sinners who
were oppressing them. But Jesus has been given that name at birth for a
different reason. Not that he will save his people from sinners, but that he
will save his people from their sins.
And for that reason, he rides in on a donkey, not a
warhorse. He comes in peace. He will not save his people from their sins with
violence – he cannot do it that way. The humble king comes in peace, not to
inflict violence, but to suffer violence. In doing so, he will in some
mysterious way stand where his people should, absorbing that which rightly should
be theirs, sin being condemned in his body instead. Jesus rides into Jerusalem,
knowing that later in the week he will walk out of the city, carrying a crossbeam.
Hence, we sing:
Ride on, ride on in majesty
In lowly pomp ride on to die
This is how he establishes his kingdom. He conquers the evil
that opposes his reign not with force but suffering. And if that is how he sets
up his kingdom, then it sets the tone for life in that kingdom. This is why we
can never advance the Gospel violently. It is not a matter of arguing over what
individual verses of the Bible mean: it is a question of the Cross. The Cross
is why we can say clearly that historical atrocities like the Crusades and the
Spanish Inquisition were unequivocally wrong. It is why we can be dubious about
the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, who allegedly saw the Cross in a
dream and heard the message, ‘In this sign conquer’, taking it as the promise
he would win a battle. It is why – in my opinion – it is dangerous for the
Church to be too closely allied to the State, because the State inevitably has
to use violence.
We can argue all we like as Christians about whether there
is ever such a thing as a just war, or whether all Christians should be
pacifists. However, one thing should command our universal agreement: we cannot
and must not promote Christianity by force, because that is contrary to the
Cross.
Thus, a friend of mine in the 1980s, a Kenyan clergyman,
once told me: ‘If I am attacked because I am a black man, I have no problem in
fighting back. It is a matter of justice. But if I am attacked because I am a
Christian, then I must accept suffering.’
Such talk about suffering in peace rather than responding in
violence may seem remote for many of us (although it isn’t for millions of our
sisters and brothers in Christ). But we have our smaller acts of violence that
we need to repudiate. Our acid tongues. Our character assassinations. I can
think of churches I know where stories like this are common: ‘W won’t come to
church any more, because X was cruel to her’; ‘Y can never trust Z again,
because he ripped him to shreds’. A peaceable kingdom doesn’t just mean non-violence:
it means reconciliation.
3. Inclusion
But then this peaceable Jesus goes to the Temple. And here he doesn’t look too
peaceable at all. In a sign of the judgment to come, he overturns the tables of
the moneychangers and the seats of the dove sellers. He quotes Old Testament
prophecy:
‘It is written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;
but you are making it a den of robbers.’
(Verse 13)
Why is Jesus mad? He doesn’t oppose the sacrificial system,
but he is angry that changing ordinary Roman coinage for the special Temple
currency and then the selling of doves for sacrifices using this holy money is
happening in a particular place. Is it that it is happening in the Temple? No.
To get a clue, we need to think about where Matthew got his material, and when
he wrote it.
Matthew adapts a lot of Mark’s Gospel. Mark records Jesus as
saying that the Temple should be ‘a house of prayer for all nations’. However, unlike Mark, Matthew is probably writing
after the destruction of the Temple by Roman armies in AD 70. It is now
irrelevant to his readers that non-Jews might use the Temple as a house of prayer.
But that thought is probably central to Jesus’ original actions. Why? Because
the moneychangers and dove sellers had set themselves up in the one part of the
Temple to which Gentiles could be admitted. It was called, ‘The Court of the
Gentiles’. The presence of moneychangers and dove sellers there prevented
Gentiles from coming to worship Israel’s God. They had been excluded as a
result of preoccupation with religious business. That makes the Temple ‘a den
of robbers’: the authorities have robbed Gentiles of the opportunity to worship
the Lord.
And if you doubt the idea that the religious tastemakers
were an excluding lot, look at their offence over the noise, the healings and
especially the children. They protest at the noise – a din that has arisen
because Jesus has healed sick and unclean people; a racket that is all the
louder, because children are participating in it and don’t know how to fade the
volume. It’s as if the authorities would have been happier to see the sick
remain unclean and outside the Temple. And they certainly didn’t appreciate
children who should still be learning the ropes in synagogue school leading the
worship.
Outsiders, the unclean and children: still today these
groups face exclusion rather than the welcome Jesus issued to his kingdom – a welcome
found through the grace of repentance. So, for example, when I finished my
second assembly at Broomfield Primary on Thursday, I was invited to go to the
staff room for break time and drink a welcome cuppa. Among a few conversations
was one with the Head. I never realised before that she, too, was a Christian. But
she told me a shocking story of a ‘christening’ she had recently attended in a
parish other than her own. One child was
apparently so happy at the service that she began to sing and dance. The vicar
demanded that her parents keep her under control. Then two other children
wanted a better view, so they walked down the aisle and sat on the carpet near
the font, holding hands. Was that an ‘Aaah!’ moment? Not in the eyes of this
vicar. ‘Get these children out of my way!’ was his response.
It’s a good job my Head Teacher friend is a Christian, but
what must it have been like for the families of these children, and others attending?
What did it say for the welcome to the church family that was purportedly being
issued in the baptism of the infant? The opposite message was being conveyed
loudly.
It’s actually not much different from saying that children
are the church of tomorrow – a claim that excludes them from their proper
participation now in the community of God’s kingdom.
I wonder whether we have any groups of people who would be
silently or subtly excluded. Are there those whose backgrounds we dislike, and
whom we’d rather find a way of suggesting they don’t belong here or should find
a different spiritual home?
The crazy thing is, when we exclude those who don’t usually
fit our conventional ideas about who might be worthy citizens of God’s kingdom.
If Debbie and I have an urgent personal prayer request, there are a small
handful of people to whom we turn. If we have time to get on the phone, there
are my parents and a couple of people from our last circuit: a man in his eighties
called Cyril, and a woman in her seventies called Isa. My parents, Cyril and
Isa meet conventional church-insider stereotypes. But the other person we will
ask (provided the situation is suitable for her to know about) is Rebekah, our
daughter, who will not be five until next weekend. If anyone has a hotline to
God, it’s her!
Maybe you just find that a heart-warming story about a
little girl. But I challenge you to consider that those whom we exclude are
those for whom Christ rode into Jerusalem and then died outside its walls. They
miss their inheritance of faith, and we miss their contribution to the kingdom.
Their inclusion in the kingdom is required by the humility and peace that
Christ sets as core values.
[1]
Yes, I know it’s environmentally unsound and Jeremy Clarkson’s humour is often ‘inappropriate’.
Technorati Tags: PalmSunday, BroomfieldPrimarySchool, TopGear, kingdomofGod, Queen, GordonBrown, DavidBeckham, RichardDannatt, humility, peace, inclusion, JeremyClarkson
Tomorrow’s Sermon: The King Rides In
1. Humility
On Thursday morning, I had to take two assemblies at Broomfield Primary School. Sharon
Young, the RE Co-ordinator, had asked me to take ‘Palm Sunday’ as my theme. I wondered
what to do. Then, stealing inspiration from a book on my shelf, I asked them
whether they watched Top Gear[1].
From the raucous response, I gathered the answer was ‘yes’. So I asked them
about people and cars. If the Queen turned up to visit their school, what kind
of car would she be in? The consensus was Rolls Royce. If Gordon Brown came for
a political photo opportunity, what car would carry him? Some kind of black
limousine was the main answer. And if David Beckham arrived to launch a branch
of his Football Academy, what would he drive? Here, the argument was purely
about which kind of sports car it would be: Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche.
Then I asked them what they would think if David Beckham
turned up in a Reliant Robin, or on a pushbike. I think the overall response I received
could have been summarised by the word ‘derision’. A famous or important public
figure just wouldn’t travel that way. We discussed how people would feel if
(locally born hero) General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Head of the British Army,
rode a bike rather than a military vehicle to an official function.
But that, I said, was exactly what Jesus did on what we call
Palm Sunday. He came, not on a warhorse, but a donkey. He came as king, but not
as the warrior king. He came fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah on a donkey,
an animal signifying peace and humility. Jesus was a different kind of king. What
kind of different king?
To make this point, I asked for two volunteers. The forest
of hands was dense! I invited one boy at the back to come out with a friend. I sat
the boy down on a chair, and asked him to remove his shoes. Then I asked his
friend to smell his feet. Fortunately, the boy didn’t use a rude word! He looked
closer to it when I then suggested he should wash his friend’s feet!
So I explained the foot-washing story from John 13, and how
it was necessary to wash feet after long journeys on Palestine’s dusty roads, wearing
sandals. I told them how Jewish servants found it too demeaning to do, and how
the task was allocated only to Gentile slaves. How shocking, then, for Jesus to
wash his disciples’ feet. The same Jesus who had ridden into Jerusalem on a
donkey, now also shows peace and humility in the act of foot washing. This is a
different kind of king. This is not one who lords it over others, but one whose
deepest concern is for those who – in terms of rank – are far beneath him.
We know all this – don’t we? It’s something we cover most
Palm Sundays and every Holy Week. Jesus is the ‘humble king’. But it raises the
simple points about Christian humility. Do we prefer the needs of others to our
own? Do we consider some activities beneath us? Are we a little too keen to
name-drop and make ourselves sound more important than we really are? Maybe this
year it’s time for a little check-up on our pride and self-importance. If Jesus,
the king of God’s kingdom, could behave with such humility, what would he call
us to do as a sign of that kingdom? Have we become more serious about ourselves
than about Jesus? Is it time to take ourselves a lot less seriously, and Christ
much more so?
2. Peace
Humility isn’t the only way in which Jesus will confound his crowd of
supporters. They shout, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, thus giving him a
messianic title. And – as we know again – they had certain ideas about what
Messiah would do when he came. He would save his people from the sinners who
were oppressing them. But Jesus has been given that name at birth for a
different reason. Not that he will save his people from sinners, but that he
will save his people from their sins.
And for that reason, he rides in on a donkey, not a
warhorse. He comes in peace. He will not save his people from their sins with
violence – he cannot do it that way. The humble king comes in peace, not to
inflict violence, but to suffer violence. In doing so, he will in some
mysterious way stand where his people should, absorbing that which rightly should
be theirs, sin being condemned in his body instead. Jesus rides into Jerusalem,
knowing that later in the week he will walk out of the city, carrying a crossbeam.
Hence, we sing:
Ride on, ride on in majesty
In lowly pomp ride on to die
This is how he establishes his kingdom. He conquers the evil
that opposes his reign not with force but suffering. And if that is how he sets
up his kingdom, then it sets the tone for life in that kingdom. This is why we
can never advance the Gospel violently. It is not a matter of arguing over what
individual verses of the Bible mean: it is a question of the Cross. The Cross
is why we can say clearly that historical atrocities like the Crusades and the
Spanish Inquisition were unequivocally wrong. It is why we can be dubious about
the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, who allegedly saw the Cross in a
dream and heard the message, ‘In this sign conquer’, taking it as the promise
he would win a battle. It is why – in my opinion – it is dangerous for the
Church to be too closely allied to the State, because the State inevitably has
to use violence.
We can argue all we like as Christians about whether there
is ever such a thing as a just war, or whether all Christians should be
pacifists. However, one thing should command our universal agreement: we cannot
and must not promote Christianity by force, because that is contrary to the
Cross.
Thus, a friend of mine in the 1980s, a Kenyan clergyman,
once told me: ‘If I am attacked because I am a black man, I have no problem in
fighting back. It is a matter of justice. But if I am attacked because I am a
Christian, then I must accept suffering.’
Such talk about suffering in peace rather than responding in
violence may seem remote for many of us (although it isn’t for millions of our
sisters and brothers in Christ). But we have our smaller acts of violence that
we need to repudiate. Our acid tongues. Our character assassinations. I can
think of churches I know where stories like this are common: ‘W won’t come to
church any more, because X was cruel to her’; ‘Y can never trust Z again,
because he ripped him to shreds’. A peaceable kingdom doesn’t just mean non-violence:
it means reconciliation.
3. Inclusion
But then this peaceable Jesus goes to the Temple. And here he doesn’t look too
peaceable at all. In a sign of the judgment to come, he overturns the tables of
the moneychangers and the seats of the dove sellers. He quotes Old Testament
prophecy:
‘It is written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;
but you are making it a den of robbers.’
(Verse 13)
Why is Jesus mad? He doesn’t oppose the sacrificial system,
but he is angry that changing ordinary Roman coinage for the special Temple
currency and then the selling of doves for sacrifices using this holy money is
happening in a particular place. Is it that it is happening in the Temple? No.
To get a clue, we need to think about where Matthew got his material, and when
he wrote it.
Matthew adapts a lot of Mark’s Gospel. Mark records Jesus as
saying that the Temple should be ‘a house of prayer for all nations’. However, unlike Mark, Matthew is probably writing
after the destruction of the Temple by Roman armies in AD 70. It is now
irrelevant to his readers that non-Jews might use the Temple as a house of prayer.
But that thought is probably central to Jesus’ original actions. Why? Because
the moneychangers and dove sellers had set themselves up in the one part of the
Temple to which Gentiles could be admitted. It was called, ‘The Court of the
Gentiles’. The presence of moneychangers and dove sellers there prevented
Gentiles from coming to worship Israel’s God. They had been excluded as a
result of preoccupation with religious business. That makes the Temple ‘a den
of robbers’: the authorities have robbed Gentiles of the opportunity to worship
the Lord.
And if you doubt the idea that the religious tastemakers
were an excluding lot, look at their offence over the noise, the healings and
especially the children. They protest at the noise – a din that has arisen
because Jesus has healed sick and unclean people; a racket that is all the
louder, because children are participating in it and don’t know how to fade the
volume. It’s as if the authorities would have been happier to see the sick
remain unclean and outside the Temple. And they certainly didn’t appreciate
children who should still be learning the ropes in synagogue school leading the
worship.
Outsiders, the unclean and children: still today these
groups face exclusion rather than the welcome Jesus issued to his kingdom – a welcome
found through the grace of repentance. So, for example, when I finished my
second assembly at Broomfield Primary on Thursday, I was invited to go to the
staff room for break time and drink a welcome cuppa. Among a few conversations
was one with the Head. I never realised before that she, too, was a Christian. But
she told me a shocking story of a ‘christening’ she had recently attended in a
parish other than her own. One child was
apparently so happy at the service that she began to sing and dance. The vicar
demanded that her parents keep her under control. Then two other children
wanted a better view, so they walked down the aisle and sat on the carpet near
the font, holding hands. Was that an ‘Aaah!’ moment? Not in the eyes of this
vicar. ‘Get these children out of my way!’ was his response.
It’s a good job my Head Teacher friend is a Christian, but
what must it have been like for the families of these children, and others attending?
What did it say for the welcome to the church family that was purportedly being
issued in the baptism of the infant? The opposite message was being conveyed
loudly.
It’s actually not much different from saying that children
are the church of tomorrow – a claim that excludes them from their proper
participation now in the community of God’s kingdom.
I wonder whether we have any groups of people who would be
silently or subtly excluded. Are there those whose backgrounds we dislike, and
whom we’d rather find a way of suggesting they don’t belong here or should find
a different spiritual home?
The crazy thing is, when we exclude those who don’t usually
fit our conventional ideas about who might be worthy citizens of God’s kingdom.
If Debbie and I have an urgent personal prayer request, there are a small
handful of people to whom we turn. If we have time to get on the phone, there
are my parents and a couple of people from our last circuit: a man in his eighties
called Cyril, and a woman in her seventies called Isa. My parents, Cyril and
Isa meet conventional church-insider stereotypes. But the other person we will
ask (provided the situation is suitable for her to know about) is Rebekah, our
daughter, who will not be five until next weekend. If anyone has a hotline to
God, it’s her!
Maybe you just find that a heart-warming story about a
little girl. But I challenge you to consider that those whom we exclude are
those for whom Christ rode into Jerusalem and then died outside its walls. They
miss their inheritance of faith, and we miss their contribution to the kingdom.
Their inclusion in the kingdom is required by the humility and peace that
Christ sets as core values.
[1]
Yes, I know it’s environmentally unsound and Jeremy Clarkson’s humour is often ‘inappropriate’.
Technorati Tags: PalmSunday, BroomfieldPrimarySchool, TopGear, kingdomofGod, Queen, GordonBrown, DavidBeckham, RichardDannatt, humility, peace, inclusion, JeremyClarkson
